Toronto city council should demand that disgraced Mayor Rob Ford leave office. Even if he won’t listen, it would register the city’s disapproval.

Toronto city council has an opportunity to send a clear message to Mayor Rob Ford.

Published on Tue Nov 12 2013

Toronto city council has a choice. It can keep wringing its collective hands and pleading with a hard-drinking, crack-using con man to step aside voluntarily as mayor. Or it can demand – not ask, demand – that action be taken to oust Rob Ford from the office he has disgraced and does not deserve to hold.

Regrettably, this council doesn’t seem up to the challenge.

Ford has admitted to criminal conduct. Using crack cocaine is illegal under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. He misled the public for months about this wrongdoing, confessing only after police found a video catching him in the act, and uttering racist and homophobic slurs to boot. Ford’s excuse, that he was in “one of my drunken stupors,” has quite rightly generated derision around the world.

Add to this Ford’s proven association with gangsters; his clandestine meetings with an accused drug dealer who left packages in the mayor’s car; humiliating episodes of rage and public drunkenness; and his refusal to talk with police.

It beggars belief that any elected person would expect to remain in public office after a string of abuses and blunders like that. Yet Ford fully intends to stay, blowing kisses at the media and assuring his ethics-blind supporters: “I’m not going anywhere, guaranteed.”

In the theatre of the absurd that is Toronto city hall, he might just be right. Ford’s stubbornness highlights a gaping hole in Ontario municipal law. An incumbent mayor – no matter how awful – can be ousted only for breaking conflict-of-interest rules; being convicted of a Criminal Code offence; or for missing three months of meetings. That’s it.

There’s no way for a city council to get rid of a rogue member, even one whose presence is an immense detriment to his city.

Council is to address Ford’s situation on Wednesday with a motion from Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong requesting that the mayor take a temporary leave of absence to deal with his “personal issues” and then return, presumably hale and hearty, to lead the city forward. This is nonsense. It’s long past time when Ford should be allowed to apologize, go through the motions of seeking treatment, then come back to burden the city with his tainted presence. And the point is moot, because the mayor is steadfastly refusing to do even that.

Council should demand Ford’s immediate departure. Even if he won’t go and can’t be forced, a resounding vote of non-confidence by a large majority of Ford’s colleagues would, at least, send a message to the world that Toronto objects to the behaviour of its unprincipled mayor.

To his credit, Minnan-Wong had proposed an additional measure: that council petition Queen’s Park for legislation making it possible to toss Ford from office if the mayor refuses to go on leave.

The province doesn’t appear eager to act, certainly not without a clear appeal from city hall supported by a strong majority of councillors. Unfortunately for Toronto’s reputation, a significant number of councillors seem unwilling to crack down on this city’s crack mayor.

Minnan-Wong’s call for provincial intervention isn’t making much headway. And even the milquetoast motion urging Ford to go on a temporary leave of absence might be sidetracked by having it sent to the city’s integrity commissioner for an opinion.

Short of voting to give Ford a congratulatory bouquet of flowers, there’s nothing council could do to make itself a greater laughing stock than to punt this issue to the commissioner. It would amount to confessing – not just to Toronto but to the world – that a majority of councillors aren’t quite sure that what Ford did was wrong.

Here’s the thought process evidently at work: Smoking crack and lying about it . . . consorting with criminals . . . stonewalling police. Hmmm. Is a mayor not supposed to that? We better ask an expert.

Ridiculous.

Some argue that, for good or ill, the voters chose Ford and it would be unfair to challenge the result of this democratic decision. In fact, nobody knowingly voted to make a hard-drinking crack smoker with criminal connections this city’s chief magistrate. That option wasn’t on any ballot. But that’s what has been foisted on the people of Toronto.

City council has an opportunity to send a strong message condemning Ford’s excesses and signaling that this great city deserves better. Failure to do so – reluctance to censure such obvious wrongdoing – would amount to a dereliction of municipal duty.

More on thestar.com

We value respectful and thoughtful discussion. Readers are encouraged to flag comments that fail to meet the standards outlined in our
Community Code of Conduct.
For further information, including our legal guidelines, please see our full website
Terms and Conditions.